Kevin Palmer

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  • It was nearly 11pm in southern Saskatchewan. I had just watched a bright auroral substorm send colorful arcs high into the northern sky, but it was starting to fade. Then I turned around, looking south, and this is what I saw. A bright pinkish strip of light stretched from east to west, while the crescent moon hung low on the horizon. It's one of the most unusual things I've ever seen in the night sky. This strange type of aurora is called Steve. The name started as a joke, but it stuck.  Steve was first captured last year by a group of aurora photographers in Alberta. After ESA flew a satellite through it earlier this year, it was discovered that it's comprised of very hot (10,800°F) ionized gases moving along at 4 miles per second. This ribbon of light is 16 miles wide and thousands of miles long. I watched as Steve started overhead nearly paralleling the US-Canada border, before slowly moving south. It turned into a green "picket fence" pattern before fading away. It was awesome to see such a mysterious phenomena which is still being studied by scientists.
    An Aurora Named Steve
  • It was nearly 11pm in southern Saskatchewan. I had just watched a bright auroral substorm send colorful arcs high into the northern sky, but it was starting to fade. Then I turned around, looking south, and this is what I saw. A bright pinkish strip of light stretched from east to west, while the crescent moon hung low on the horizon. It's one of the most unusual things I've ever seen in the night sky. This strange type of aurora is called Steve. The name started as a joke, but it stuck.  Steve was first captured last year by a group of aurora photographers in Alberta. After ESA flew a satellite through it earlier this year, it was discovered that it's comprised of very hot (10,800°F) ionized gases moving along at 4 miles per second. This ribbon of light is 16 miles wide and thousands of miles long. I watched as Steve started overhead nearly paralleling the US-Canada border, before slowly moving south. It turned into a green "picket fence" pattern before fading away. It was awesome to see such a mysterious phenomena which is still being studied by scientists.
    Steve and the Moon
  • It was half past midnight on the last day of August. A solar wind stream blowing at 700 km a second reached Earth a little sooner than predicted. The northern lights had been dancing on and off for the past few hours. But then I noticed a strange pattern, which was dim enough that I wasn’t sure it was really there. A long exposure revealed greater detail and color. The picket fence pattern is related to a rare, recently classified type of aurora called STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement.) STEVE most often appears as a bright, pinkish ribbon of light found away from the main band of aurora. STEVE may or may not be accompanied by this green picket fence, but on this night the brighter streak of light was absent. It was my first time seeing it this far south in Wyoming. Lake DeSmet provided a beautiful blurred reflection when the wind let up. This night was the first of 4 in a row that I’d capture the aurora. The weeks surrounding the spring and fall equinoxes tend to be the most favorable for geomagnetic storm conditions. But around here the weather tends to be a lot clearer in the early fall, which is why I have more aurora sightings in September than in March.
    Emerald Waters